Have you ever felt so down and discouraged, that all you wanted to do was go off into a solitary, dark room by yourself, and just be left alone? Sometimes our problems are so overwhelming, and our depression so deep, that we feel like doing just that. All of our friends and acquaintances have let us down, and it seems like no one cares. This is where we find David as we look at our psalm for this week.
As a young man, David had come to the attention of King Saul when he killed the great enemy Goliath and defeated the Philistines. King Saul kept David available to fight with the army, and also invited him to court since he was a good musician and his songs calmed Saul’s often erratic moods. Those erratic moods of King Saul were what caused David so many problems. Saul became quite jealous of the young man David, as he was becoming very popular with the people because of his military prowess and youthful good looks. That jealous quickly grew into a murderous rage, and David was forced to flee for his life. Saul wasn’t content to just have him away from court, he pursued after him all across the country, and even out into the wilderness.
At one time David felt that it was necessary to flee out of the country, and into the neighboring city of Gath, in the Philistine territory. While there, the Philistine king was notified that this man was their enemy David who had defeated Goliath and won many battles against them. So David had to quickly leave the place that he thought he might have found refuge (I Samuel 21:10-22:2).
Where could he go? Saul made his homeland dangerous for him, and now even the neighboring countries were not safe. A depressed and discouraged David literally found a cave and crawled into that to hide from his enemies. The superscription of our psalm says that it was written while he was in the cave. This was one of the lowest times in David’s life. He was lonely and desolate, so much so that he chose a cave to be in for safety and to be alone. That is rather desperate. God brought David to this place to begin to shape and use him even more than before. It was here that God started to reroute his life.
David was going through a prolonged period of stress, constantly running for his life, finding no place to stay where he was safe, and this led to depression. He felt worthless and useless. David needed to view himself as God saw him, someone who was loved and special. Staying at the bottom, rolling in misery, leads only to more despair. David didn’t want to stay there, so he turned to the Lord God and cried out, bringing his problems to Him, just as we need to (vs. 1-2).
In the middle of confessing his darkest feelings of hopelessness, David acknowledged that God knows everything (vs. 3). It appeared that it was just as bleak outside the cave as it was inside. It seemed that no one cared, that he had been abandoned (vs. 4). There was no one to stand with him. Sometimes that seems to be the case for us, as well. Those we thought were our friends, those we thought we could trust and rely on, have turned away from us, even against us. Yet we can find, just as David did, that even when every person has turned away from us, God is still there. We can take refuge in Him when our problems overwhelm us. God understands our feelings. He is there, He cares and is compassionate to us.
David knew that he could not stay in that cave. It would become like a prison to him (vs. 7). He needed to get out and get back on the path of his life that the Lord had set him on, to get out not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally. Had David chosen to stay in his misery, his life would have remained in that cave.
Are we in a cave, as David was? Not a literal cave, but one that we have chosen to crawl into to escape our problems, or a cave of misery and depression? Turn to the Lord God and bring our problems to Him, as David did. Only God can bring us out of our emotional and spiritual captivity.
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